


half-light

by lazyfish



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:47:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23760079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish
Summary: "I'll care for you.""It's rotten work.""Not to me. Not if it's you."(Or, Huntingbird care for each other, but are bad at words.)
Relationships: Lance Hunter/Bobbi Morse
Comments: 15
Kudos: 28
Collections: o for a muse of fire





	half-light

He stumbles home to her with a bloody nose and a broken rib and a black eye. It’s not the first time he’s returned to her like this, and it won’t be the last - not in their line of work. She lays him down on the sofa, head in her lap, handing him tissues to staunch the flow of blood and a bag of cold peas to ease the swelling. 

Her fingers dance along the line of his cheekbone, not pausing even when he winces at the pressure.

 _Just making sure it’s not broken_ , she whispers, sliding her hand through his hair. It’s slick with dirt and grease and maybe blood (someone else’s, she thinks). The corners of his lips turn down at her explanation, and not in the stupidly adorable way they do when he’s pouting at her. Parentheses bracket his mouth, worry lines she tries to forget exist.

She bites her lip, hard. _I’ll take care of you_ , she wants to say, but doesn’t. Instead she keeps running her hands through his hair until the movement lulls him to sleep. 

She sits vigil over him, listens to him breathe and breathe and breathe. Sleep hasn’t taken away his pain, but the furrows in his brow are a little gentler, his face a little softer. The morning will come and steal him away again - or maybe it’ll take her. It doesn’t matter which of them leaves.

One of them always does.

\---

The ring on his finger is cold in its newness, and already his wife is off to save the world.

It doesn’t bother him, really. Sometimes he wishes she would care about him half as much as she cares about being a savior, but at the end of the day, he fell in love with her as she was, as she is, as she will be. He learned long ago people never change, not really, so he’s not surprised when she calls him from a hospital three days later.

Bullet wound. Through-and-through. She can’t use her right arm - not well, anyway - and is, of course, displeased.

Maybe displeased is an understatement. She’s doing her best not to snap at the nurses, but the moment he’s in the room he gets hell and a half.

He’s never been good at patience, snapping right back at her even when he knows she doesn’t mean anything she’s saying. He has half a mind just to walk out, but he doesn’t. He’s not good at walking away from her.

 _I’ll take care of you_ , he says, soft and warm into the antiseptic air.

She fractures then - not enough for anyone else to see, but he knows her, knows what the hitch in her breathing means, the flick of her eyelashes over her ice-blue eyes. There’s something she wants to say to him but won’t, and he knows better than to ask.

So he doesn’t speak again, just listens to her complain about this, that, and the other, and wonders if he’s really ready for what he’s gotten into.

\---

 _I’ll take care of you_ , she murmurs as she holds him close to her chest, rocking back and forth as if it will somehow rid him of his demons.

He clutches her tighter, his fingernails digging into the delicate skin covering her spine, but she won’t rip herself away from him. She will bleed for him, just as she always has done. 

_It’s rotten work_ , he chokes, pushing his face deeper into her. He’s shaking still, from cold or memories or both.

She shushes him quickly. She’s heard a hundred nightmares, maybe a thousand - sharing bunks with agents will do that to you - but it wasn’t until him she began to feel the insistent pull of _must make it better_. She can’t explain it, doesn’t think she wants an explanation. It’s one thing to know she loves him; it’s another entirely to prove it.

He sobs again, the sound rough around the edges, and she bleeds, not from his nails in her back but from the hole he’s ripping in her heart. It hurts like nothing should hurt, like an old wound she didn’t know she had. 

Maybe this is rotten work, loving someone when they don’t quite love themselves. But to her, it will not be. It will never be. Not if it’s him.

\---

Their bunk glows orange and gold, the light casting more shadows across her face, deepening the circles under her eyes. She doesn’t look well. He doesn’t expect her to, but it’s sobering to see when he lifts her from the wheelchair and into their bed.

It’s been hospital beds for a long time now, and she seems confused about what to do with the softness of their bed for a moment, before she relaxes and lets herself sink in.

 _I’ll take care of you_ , he promises, even though he supposes she knows that already. He’s the one who got her into this mess ( _why_ did she take a bullet for him?) and it’s his job to see her out of it.

 _It’s rotten work_ , she answers, chuckle dry. She seems to be referencing something he doesn’t remember, an inside joke he’s lost the other half of.

 _Not to me_ , he whispers, bending to kiss her brow before rounding the bed to lay on the other side. _Not if it’s you._

She leans into him, her lips careful when she kisses him. He tastes his words on her mouth, and it’s an odd flavor - bittersoursweet, hope and sorrow, memories long laid to rest.

There’s more he could say. More she could, too. But they won’t.

They’ll just keep caring, and maybe that will see them through.


End file.
